


No Need to Fake It

by killerqueer



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: A bit of angst in the beginning, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, High School AU, M/M, Misunderstandings, Seven Minutes In Heaven, but they're teenagers so i guess that fits lmao, reddie library prompt fill, they're 16 in this, this is a bit dramatic tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 12:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15949337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killerqueer/pseuds/killerqueer
Summary: Richie and Eddie are sent into the closet for Seven Minutes in Heaven at a Loser's Club party. Richie thinks Eddie still has a crush on Bill and as such, doesn't want to kiss him. Eddie on the other hand hasn't had a crush on Bill in ages and is ass over teakettle in love with Richie. A bit of angst at the beginning with a happy ending.For the Seven Minutes in Heaven prompt that was sent to @reddielibrary on tumblr





	No Need to Fake It

**Author's Note:**

> Got a bit angstier in the beginning than I planned, but this is the song the title is from and what I imaging playing at the end.
> 
> The prompt did request nsfw but tbh I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to have grown ass adults playing seven minutes in heaven lmao and I'm not going to write nsfw for the characters as kids. So I decided to go the fluff route, and I hope you still like it, whoever requested this!

The closet was dark and cramped and Eddie was sick of staring at the fuzzy outline of his shoes, which he could just barely see in the tiny sliver of light creeping in from the crack under the door. The presence of the light told him that the others hadn't yet descended on the door to press their ears against it to find out if he and Richie were doing anything and the thought of that made him feel a bit sick.

Because he  _ wanted _ something to be happening. He really did. But Richie didn't. And wasn't that the goddamn joke of it all. The universe was getting it's  _ chucks _ now and it was getting them at Eddie's expense.

He felt like he might cry, throw up, or both, and he didn't know which would come first or which would be worse. At least if he threw up he could claim to be ill when they dragged him out of the closet. He could call his mother and she would be more than thrilled to bring him home with her. He'd have to spend the next few days at the hospital at her insistence but at least that was a few days of not having to face Richie. Tears would just be humiliating. If he cried, Richie would know how much the rejection had hurt, which would just rub salt into the already stinging wound of knowing that Richie didn't want to kiss him.

"Are you mad at me?"

They were the first words that either of them had spoken in a few minutes, ever since Eddie had all but bounded into the closet with unbridled enthusiasm to kiss Richie, only to be shut down immediately.

He had been so sure that Richie felt the same way he did. He thought he knew how to read Richie pretty well and the way Richie smiled at him and touched him and looked at him when he thought Eddie wasn't looking were more than platonic. At least he thought they were. It was definitely different than how Bill had ever looked at him in the years Eddie had pined after  _ him _ . But maybe the universe's cruelest joke of all was that Eddie was just unlovable. Or that he at least just had no idea how to read his closest friends.

He thought Richie would be all jokes and sly smiles and innuendo until he kissed Eddie himself, but had tried not to be discouraged when that didn't happen. This was his chance. The best one he would ever get with the fallback excuse of the game if it didn't go in his favor. So he took a breath and just asked.

_ "Can I kiss you?" _

The silence had been deafening and answer enough.

Which brought him back to the question at hand. Was he mad at Richie? He was hurt, for sure, and embarrassed. He wanted to cry, and he felt a bit angry with himself, absolutely. But was he mad at Richie?

"No..."

"Then why are you ignoring me?"

"I'm not.  _ You _ haven't said anything else either."

He sounded defensive. He knew he did. The silence hung around them once again, somehow even more tense than before and Richie was continuing to be uncharacteristically quiet.

Eddie wished the others had let him keep his watch. It felt like they had been in here for hours.

"Why don't you want to kiss me?"

The words had come out before he could even consider them and now they were out there on display. He felt like he was laid out on a hospital bed, naked and cold, with Richie standing over him with a scalpel, ready to cut him open and examine every inch of vulnerability.

"Aw, c'mon Eds..." Richie's awkward chuckle didn't live up to his usual casual bravado and suddenly Eddie  _ did _ feel angry.

"No! Don't laugh it off, Richie, it's not funny. I'm serious." His voice came out in a sharp hiss, and he tried to keep his voice down so as not to draw the others to the door to eavesdrop. "You kiss  _ everyone _ . It's a game! I know for a fact you kissed Bev twenty minutes ago. Why don't you want to kiss me? What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing, Eds, Jesus! Nothing's  _ wrong _ with you. Calm down!"

"Don't tell me to calm down! If nothing's wrong with me, what makes the idea of kissing me so terrible?"

He knew he sounded like a child. He wanted to grab the words out of the air, ball them up and shove them back into his mouth where he could chew them up into disgusting soggy bits and swallow them back down where they belonged. But it was too late for that.

He had stepped closer to Richie during his whispered tirade and was poking Richie in the chest accusingly. He was glad the lights were off, because he must have looked truly crazy in that moment. Richie's hand grabbed his and pushed it down to their sides where it wasn't jabbing into his sternum. He didn't let go, but Eddie tore his hand away, too angry to think about it.

"It's not you, Eddie. You said it yourself, it's just a game. To you, it's just a game. I know you're hung up over him," he whispered back, voice a little strained and Eddie could just barely make out the way Richie's head nodded towards the door, indicating one of the other losers. Eddie had no idea what the hell he was talking about but the confusion slowed him down just enough to allow Richie to continue uninterrupted. "I'm not gonna kiss you when I know you'd rather be kissing Bill. I'm not an idiot, I know this is your first kiss and it'd be bullshit for your first kiss to be me when you want it to be him.”

What?

"What the hell are you talking about?"

They were close enough now that Eddie could feel Richie's hand coming up between them for Richie to scrub at his face with it as he sighed.

"Come on Eddie, we all know that you have a crush on Big Bill. Everyone except king dumbass himself knows it. It's not fair for you to have your first kiss with someone you don't actually have feelings for. I know you want to kiss someone but, believe it or not, I don't kiss people for games when I wanna kiss them for real. That's not fair to me."

_ When I wanna kiss them for real. _

_ When I wanna kiss them for real. When I. Wanna kiss them. For real. WhenIwannakissthemforreal. _

The words sent his mind reeling. The only thing keeping his body from following suit was the way he was suddenly frozen in place and couldn't move even if he tried.

"Fuck...that was a little too serious to play it off as a joke, huh, Eds?" Richie was babbling now and Eddie knew he was staying silent for too long, but he suddenly didn't know how to make his mouth form words. "'Ha ha just kidding, I'm definitely not an idiot who doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut' doesn't really work now, does it... Damn it Eds, can you say something?"

Eddie closed his mouth, suddenly becoming aware that it had even been open at all.

"I don't like Bill."

"What?"

"Well I mean, of course I  _ like _ Bill, he's my friend... he's all of our friend, you know, but... I don't  _ like _ like him." He was fishing for words and none of them were quite what he wanted to say and they were definitely not quite what Richie wanted to hear, but he felt like he didn't have any control over what was coming out of his mouth. He couldn't really blame Richie for being confused.

"Since when?"

"Since the summer. Since he and Bev broke up."

"Okay..."

The silence descended for the third time and even in the dark he knew they were staring at each other. Their eyes had adjusted a bit and he could see the vague outline of Richie's body. Neither of them made any move to step away.

He took another deep breath.

"Can I kiss you?" he asked again. "We can wait until the game is over if you really want but... I kinda wanna kiss you right now."

Richie's responding laugh caught him off guard but he found himself laughing too. This was ridiculous, and they both knew it. Richie's hand was feeling for his face though, and as soon as it had found what it was looking for - his jaw apparently, he leaned down to kiss Eddie instead.

Eddie couldn't help but laugh again as Richie's lips missed his own and landed awkwardly on the skin between his upper lip and nose and Richie joined him. The two leaned into each other, bodies shaking together with silent laughter.

"How did you miss?" The words came out in choked breaths between bouts of laughter. "You had your hand less than an inch away!"

"Wow, you really know how to make a girl feel special don't ya, Eds. I don't know if you've noticed but it's a bit dark in here." Richie was still laughing too, though, and Edde rolled his eyes, reaching his hands up to Richie's face.

The palms of his hands and the tips of his fingers felt their way over the planes of Richie's face, feeling the bumps of his adolescent acne underneath them until he found his lips. With Richie already bent over to press his forehead against Eddie's he didn't have to lean up on his tip toes, and just tilted his own head back again.

He pushed up into Richie's lips with his own, and smiled at the feeling. He could feel Richie doing the same and despite the fact that smiling was doing nothing to make the kiss any less clumsy and awkward, it was perfect. Richie's glasses bumped against Eddie's face and Richie's lips were dry and chapped, but as they took a moment to breathe, Richie's tongue darted out to wet them and they went right back into it.

The kiss got better from there as they each found their way, mapping out each others mouths and figuring out how their bodies fit together smoothly, and they didn’t stop until the door was being opened from the outside and the light poured in, startling them out of the trance they had found themselves in.

Eddie blinked rapidly, adjusting to the light, and as he finally gained his sight back, he couldn't help but chuckle at the way that Richie's eyes were screwed tight in a ridiculously exaggerated expression of pain behind the thick frames.

"Jesus fuck, guys, give a guy some warning next time!"

"You know that's n-nuh-not how it wuh-works!" Bill replied, chuckling and giving Eddie a knowing smile.

Eddie flushed and smiled back at him, hyper aware of the way Richie's arms were still wrapped around his waist. He smiled at Bill and felt nothing, laughing as Richie opened his eyes again and Bill walked away, leaving the door open as he went.

"In case it wasn't clear, I like you, you idiot."

"Uh, yeah, I got that message loud and clear, Spaghetti."

Richie was smiling down at him and Eddie rolled his eyes, playfully smacking Richie's chest, who feigned debilitating pain for a moment before leaning down to kiss Eddie again. He pulled back though, grinning up at Richie.

"I think our seven minutes are up," he teased.

"Huh, well here's hoping the bottle lands on you again then. I don't know about you, but I'd like to do this again sometime."

The two of them stared at each other for another moment before their matching smirks busted into entirely ungraceful laughter and they fell back into each others' chests.

"Get out of the closet, assholes! Your turn is over! Go suck face somewhere else!" Bev called from the living room, and Eddie could feel himself turning bright red as Richie waggled his eyebrows at him.

"Don't mind if I do, Miss Marsh!" Richie called, dragging Eddie out of the closet and towards the stairs.

"Not in my ruh-r-room, Richie, you p-puh-piece of shit!" Bill yelped and Eddie found himself being yanked up the stairs at top speed, the sound of Bill stumbling over the coffee table behind them in pursuit making Richie cackle in front of him.

"Catch us if you can, Billiam!"


End file.
